Welcome to the console PC
Alienware’s new Alpha PC aims to finally deliver a gaming PC that is even smaller than a gaming console. And when we say smaller, we mean way smaller – this thing is about the size of a box of chocolates. It’s an admirable goal, but has Alienware been able to cram game-ready hardware into such a small form factor?
Measuring a mere 20cm by 20cm, with a height of 5cm, this thing is tiny. These dimensions don’t take into account the external power pack though, which is about a third of the size of the PC itself. Still, it’s easily the smallest gaming PC we’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. Twin USB ports adorn the front, next to the cute Alien-head power button. Another two are on the rear, next to the HDMI out, HDMI in, and SP/DIF out. An Xbox 360 wireless control pad is included in the box, along with the requisite USB dongle, and it’s possible to navigate the system with this alone. In the absence of Steam OS, which the Alpha was originally designed for, Alienware has built its own controller-friendly user interface. The AlphaUS is a very basic interface that allows for simple option tweaking, such as the video mode and the colour scheme of the various lights on the box. It’s really just a way to launch Steam in Big Picture mode though, as well as a way to allow the user to power down the system via the control pad.
Given the Alpha’s miniscule dimensions, we weren’t expecting hardware to rival a high-end gaming PC, despite the huge price tag. At the heart of the Alpha is Intel’s Core i7-4765T processor, a quadcore, HyperThreaded chip that peaks at 3GHz under load. 8GB of DDR3 memory sits alongside said processor, along with a gargantuan 2TB mechanical hard drive. Most interesting of all is the graphics processor, which is a custom design based around NVIDIA’s GTX 750 Ti, but with a higher frequency. This is basically identical to the GTX 860M GPU found in this issue’s review of the Acer V Nitro, so we can see how the frequency boost has slightly increased performance. In a nutshell, hardly at all.
Given the hardware specs, this box should deliver console-killing performance at 1080p with most details set to medium or high, as it should for three times the price. We used mid-range graphics settings for our three benchmarks, as there’s simply no way the GPU could handle everything cranked to eleven. While performance was quite playable, it’s not in the same league as a similarly priced small form factor PC with full-sized graphics card. There’s also the issue of upgrading – while the CPU and hard drive can be replaced, the custom GPU can’t, which means owners will be stuck with the performance of a GTX 750 Ti forever, removing one of the key bene ts of PC gaming.
There’s no debating that the Alpha’s miniscule form factor is highly desirable, but the price just doesn’t add up. It’s possible to build a small form factor PC with much higher performance for around $400 less than the price of the Alpha, and it won’t be that much bigger. It’ll also be upgradeable. Is it really worth spending so much more, just to shave a few centimetres off the size of a gaming PC, while also limiting performance? We’d suggest that no, it’s not. BENNETT RING
VERDICT
The Alpha is impressively small, but it comes at a high cost.